3 ms·

It's long been said: "AMD never misses a chance to miss a chance." In this case, the chance to trash its reputation with customers.

fer 5mo ago
I'm even surprised they have so much of the console market
- Novosell 5mo ago
  I imagine it's due to having had decent enough GPUs and decent enough CPUs, from a single vendor. If you want the platform to be x86 but not AMD then your only other choice is Intel, but they've only recently started making high performance GPUs. So then you need another vendor for the GPU, and your only choice is Nvidia. A lot simpler, cheaper and predictable to go with a single vendor for both I imagine?
  - wongarsu 5mo ago
    AMD also had the strongest offering for GPU and CPU using the same memory with the same address space. That allows you to switch between CPU and GPU processing for the same data, without paying the cost of moving the data to and from the GPU. Similar to what we now have on Apple silicon They tried to push the same into the desktop market with their APUs, where it was mostly ignored. But console games only target a couple hardware configurations, making it viable to take advantage of such hardware features
    - theresistor 5mo ago
      Also also, AMD’s play has always been to produce HW that offers good performance/$, with the downside of having much weaker SW offerings to go with it. Consoles are always pressured to minimize upfront purchase costs, and they generally replace the vendor-provider SW stack with their own anyways.
      - bee_rider 5mo ago
        And they’ve been in a rough spot at various times in the past, which probably made them willing to negotiate with the console companies. Actually looking at this thread, there’s a lot of good reasons they were the go-tos for consoles. Consoles seem to be in rough shape at the moment, I wonder if part of that is that AMD has been doing too well since Zen, haha.
  - philistine 5mo ago
    You’re approaching this as if every company had the same corporate intentions. Nvidia never cared much for those types of deals. They preferred to lose Apple as a business than to admit fault, they’ve always refused to compete on price for the business of Sony and Microsoft’s consoles. They’re adamant to beat at the sound of their own drum.
    - genxy 5mo ago
      Nvidia was so thirsty for an x86 license, for years, that it wouldn't consider anything else.
spider-mario 5mo ago
Should be the first of the two chances for the phrase to work.
SSLy 5mo ago
especially their marketing dept which made this decision seems to be run by absolute buffoons
- b3lvedere 5mo ago
  I bet this decision was made by showing an Excel sheet.
SecretDreams 5mo ago
AMD has long been the proof that hardware is easier than software. Apparently, hardware is also easier than marketing.
- amelius 5mo ago
  I wish more software engineers found out how easy hardware actually is.
  - sph 5mo ago
    Given how many idiotic ideas are ‘patched’ or worked around in software, it’s probably pretty easy. Especially in the world of modern GPUs when only a handful of people at the factory are able to write drivers for it. Hardware vendors lost the plot in the Winmodem era.
    - tardedmeme 5mo ago
      Winmodems are a very sensible idea. You know software-defined radio? They are that, but for modems. Expandable to support any current or future protocol, at the cost of CPU time. Why do we like SDRs but hate SDMs? That's an irrational position. The actual problem with winmodems was them breaking the established software/hardware boundary, and the Linux community not having the resources to follow suit. Nothing stops someone from taking the free Windows Vivado and making it run on Linux, or taking a Winmodem driver and making it run on Linux, or writing a from-scratch software implementation of a 56k modem that can run on any sound card plugged into a phone line (which is what a Winmodem is), or reverse engineering the bitstream format for these FPGAs and writing a compiler from scratch (or even just the device-dependent backend - the frontend and middle-end can be developed in a more normal way and can be shared with other toolchains). But nobody actually stepped up and did it, which I think is proof that the free software community is a lot weaker than it thinks it is. You could even do it right now, if you wanted to. You're not, and I'm sure there are good reasons for that. Extrapolate it across all developers, and it's unfortunate that it seems none of them have enough reason to do it. On the flip side, if anyone reading this does suddenly decide they have enough reason to do it... (Incentive: FPGAs are fun to play with!)
altairprime 5mo ago
Non-paying users aren’t customers, though, so they must view all this outrage seems irrelevant. Which suggests that they view free-tier Linux users as significantly less likely to ever pay for its use. That matches my understanding of the (non-Steam) Linux as a miserly and demanding target market, so I don’t really fault them for the choice — especially given how brutally expensive it is to support the IDIC of Miscellaneous Linuxes. Kind of surprised they haven’t just withdrawn free support for anything but Steam Linux, in order to lower their costs (and to produce a ‘free’ build that anyone can run privately but doesn’t interop at all with enterprise). Maybe they want it to be a ‘shareware trial’ for enterprise? Or perhaps they just haven’t thought of it yet.
- fsh 5mo ago
  Vivado is an IDE for programming AMD FPGAs. One cannot use it without buying AMD hardware.
  - altairprime 5mo ago
    Hardware isn’t where the margins are, and probably is somewhat of a loss leader for small-batch users; for hobby users I would hazard a guess that they’re running at around -10% profit on small sales to try and drive subscription revenue multipliers, and for already-paying users this change is essentially irrelevant and will have zero downside impact on sub revenue. Terrible way to run a profitable business if you fuck up the hardware undercut, but if you can get away with it, subscriptions are certainly a valid answer to maintenance of the platform over time. I still think they didn’t go far enough to make a meaningful dent in conversions from free to paying, though. (Note that mention of Steam Linux is not about the games aspect, but about the Valve’s seeming plans to become a competitive target for Linux support to the exclusion of other consumer-focused miscellaneity. But I tend to go on about this too often, and shouldn’t have invoked it here, apologies.)
    - awjlogan 5mo ago
      This is not the case here as the software is required to use the hardware they’re selling at any quantity. The software is cost entirely for them, if you’re not buying the hardware you’re not using the software. Given they support Linux for the paid version, its development is already paid for. Absolutely say you won’t provide support for free tier users. Today’s free tier users are tomorrow’s purchasing managers. FPGA is not a big market, so you have to capture comparatively few people for each unit of market share. Good silicon without good software is just very expensive sand.
subscribed 5mo ago
They're quite brilliant with their NICs though.

fer 5mo ago

I'm even surprised they have so much of the console market

Novosell 5mo ago
I imagine it's due to having had decent enough GPUs and decent enough CPUs, from a single vendor. If you want the platform to be x86 but not AMD then your only other choice is Intel, but they've only recently started making high performance GPUs. So then you need another vendor for the GPU, and your only choice is Nvidia. A lot simpler, cheaper and predictable to go with a single vendor for both I imagine?
- wongarsu 5mo ago
  AMD also had the strongest offering for GPU and CPU using the same memory with the same address space. That allows you to switch between CPU and GPU processing for the same data, without paying the cost of moving the data to and from the GPU. Similar to what we now have on Apple silicon They tried to push the same into the desktop market with their APUs, where it was mostly ignored. But console games only target a couple hardware configurations, making it viable to take advantage of such hardware features
  - theresistor 5mo ago
    Also also, AMD’s play has always been to produce HW that offers good performance/$, with the downside of having much weaker SW offerings to go with it. Consoles are always pressured to minimize upfront purchase costs, and they generally replace the vendor-provider SW stack with their own anyways.
    - bee_rider 5mo ago
      And they’ve been in a rough spot at various times in the past, which probably made them willing to negotiate with the console companies. Actually looking at this thread, there’s a lot of good reasons they were the go-tos for consoles. Consoles seem to be in rough shape at the moment, I wonder if part of that is that AMD has been doing too well since Zen, haha.
- philistine 5mo ago
  You’re approaching this as if every company had the same corporate intentions. Nvidia never cared much for those types of deals. They preferred to lose Apple as a business than to admit fault, they’ve always refused to compete on price for the business of Sony and Microsoft’s consoles. They’re adamant to beat at the sound of their own drum.
  - genxy 5mo ago
    Nvidia was so thirsty for an x86 license, for years, that it wouldn't consider anything else.

spider-mario 5mo ago

Should be the first of the two chances for the phrase to work.

SSLy 5mo ago

especially their marketing dept which made this decision seems to be run by absolute buffoons

b3lvedere 5mo ago
I bet this decision was made by showing an Excel sheet.

SecretDreams 5mo ago

AMD has long been the proof that hardware is easier than software. Apparently, hardware is also easier than marketing.

amelius 5mo ago
I wish more software engineers found out how easy hardware actually is.
- sph 5mo ago
  Given how many idiotic ideas are ‘patched’ or worked around in software, it’s probably pretty easy. Especially in the world of modern GPUs when only a handful of people at the factory are able to write drivers for it. Hardware vendors lost the plot in the Winmodem era.
  - tardedmeme 5mo ago
    Winmodems are a very sensible idea. You know software-defined radio? They are that, but for modems. Expandable to support any current or future protocol, at the cost of CPU time. Why do we like SDRs but hate SDMs? That's an irrational position. The actual problem with winmodems was them breaking the established software/hardware boundary, and the Linux community not having the resources to follow suit. Nothing stops someone from taking the free Windows Vivado and making it run on Linux, or taking a Winmodem driver and making it run on Linux, or writing a from-scratch software implementation of a 56k modem that can run on any sound card plugged into a phone line (which is what a Winmodem is), or reverse engineering the bitstream format for these FPGAs and writing a compiler from scratch (or even just the device-dependent backend - the frontend and middle-end can be developed in a more normal way and can be shared with other toolchains). But nobody actually stepped up and did it, which I think is proof that the free software community is a lot weaker than it thinks it is. You could even do it right now, if you wanted to. You're not, and I'm sure there are good reasons for that. Extrapolate it across all developers, and it's unfortunate that it seems none of them have enough reason to do it. On the flip side, if anyone reading this does suddenly decide they have enough reason to do it... (Incentive: FPGAs are fun to play with!)

altairprime 5mo ago

Non-paying users aren’t customers, though, so they must view all this outrage seems irrelevant. Which suggests that they view free-tier Linux users as significantly less likely to ever pay for its use. That matches my understanding of the (non-Steam) Linux as a miserly and demanding target market, so I don’t really fault them for the choice — especially given how brutally expensive it is to support the IDIC of Miscellaneous Linuxes. Kind of surprised they haven’t just withdrawn free support for anything but Steam Linux, in order to lower their costs (and to produce a ‘free’ build that anyone can run privately but doesn’t interop at all with enterprise). Maybe they want it to be a ‘shareware trial’ for enterprise? Or perhaps they just haven’t thought of it yet.

fsh 5mo ago
Vivado is an IDE for programming AMD FPGAs. One cannot use it without buying AMD hardware.
- altairprime 5mo ago
  Hardware isn’t where the margins are, and probably is somewhat of a loss leader for small-batch users; for hobby users I would hazard a guess that they’re running at around -10% profit on small sales to try and drive subscription revenue multipliers, and for already-paying users this change is essentially irrelevant and will have zero downside impact on sub revenue. Terrible way to run a profitable business if you fuck up the hardware undercut, but if you can get away with it, subscriptions are certainly a valid answer to maintenance of the platform over time. I still think they didn’t go far enough to make a meaningful dent in conversions from free to paying, though. (Note that mention of Steam Linux is not about the games aspect, but about the Valve’s seeming plans to become a competitive target for Linux support to the exclusion of other consumer-focused miscellaneity. But I tend to go on about this too often, and shouldn’t have invoked it here, apologies.)
  - awjlogan 5mo ago
    This is not the case here as the software is required to use the hardware they’re selling at any quantity. The software is cost entirely for them, if you’re not buying the hardware you’re not using the software. Given they support Linux for the paid version, its development is already paid for. Absolutely say you won’t provide support for free tier users. Today’s free tier users are tomorrow’s purchasing managers. FPGA is not a big market, so you have to capture comparatively few people for each unit of market share. Good silicon without good software is just very expensive sand.

subscribed 5mo ago

They're quite brilliant with their NICs though.